Homesteading stories

[crazylegs]

I thought maybe people would like to share some of their experiences with homesteading. He's some of mine:

The winter of 1976-77 after my wife and I met we moved out to an old rented farmhouse in the Michigan boonies for what turned out to be one of the worst winters on record. Previously I'd just lived in cities although she was from a small town. The winter wasn't really all that bad except for the isolation and lonliness and it just seemed to last forever but we learned many things about how to get by on our own.

The following spring we started buying our own place on 10 acres surrounded by woods and swamps. It was a 15X15 framed and drywalled "cabin" tacked on to an old travel trailer. We had a trickling artesian well, an outhouse that required use of a bucket because of the water table being so high, no electricity and a little Swedish wood stove. We had a large garden and a sizable crop of shall we say herbs. The place was 1/2 mile off an unpaved county road.

The neighbors were generally friendly and helped us out some. One of them was a preacher and he married us in 1978. I had a construction job for a while and then we commuted 15 miles to work at a food co-op in the city in a VW bus of course. Actually I had a whole bunch of VWs there, sort of a mini VW junk yard.

Some memorable events were walking home through the woods at night, hearing all the creatures buzzing and croaking at night, seeing deer and herons up close, the time the gallon piss jar broke, awesome vegie meals cooked on a wood stove, fighting swarms of mosquitoes, collecting wild strawberries, leeks, raspberries and other herbs and edibles, having friends over, making our own crafts and music, seeing carpets of wildflowers, getting stuck in the driveway in deep snow and much more.

We moved out in Nov of 1980 to a slightly more civilized place with electricity and better road access but those three and a half years loom large in memory. Now we live on the edge of a small town and have all the luxuries of modern life: a bathtub, a flush toilet, the internet, stereo and sound equipment, TV, an automatic gas furnace, a refrigerator, an electric stove and a telephone with an answering machine. How decadent!

[Hippie Staff]

You know, strolling down your memory lane, was fun & entertaining..I would love to read more, and I bet there are great stories woven into each tidbit above.

I actually read your post twice.

I could relate to some of your experiences..collecting forrest goodies, swatting mosquitoes in droves, but the pee jar explosion visual..I just keep coming to a screeching halt on that one. We need a whole thread just for that one. :D

[crazylegs]

Thanks HS, glad you enjoyed. It was a memorable time. As for the piss jar yes it was quite heart stopping. One of those things you don't forget. Good for for a laugh 30 years down the line though. Not so funny then.:rolleyes: (misc.php?do=getsmilies&wysiwyg=1&forumid=23#)

[LIBRA]

Great story, I would love to hear more too!!!

[crazylegs]

OK you asked for it. Chapter 1. Wild edibles.

Living out in the nether regions of civilization and being of the hippie persuasion, we felt it important to get acquainted with the wild edibles of our locale. Early in our first year we ran out of jobs and money and were down to Lima beans and carrots. In a book we had, it said you could eat milkweed pods, day lily buds and burdock root. We collected these from the neighborhood and cooked them up in a feast with what we had. The various items were indeed edible. In other words we were able to choke them down and pretend that we liked them. However, in approximately 24 hours we discovered that we didn't like them as well as we thought we did. It was a rather cathartic experience.

There were lots of wild food items that were successful though. R would dress in long pants, a long sleeved shirt and a bandanna, would tie sawed-off milk jugs to her belt and go raspberry picking. She'd come home covered with purple stains, brier scratches and mosquito bites, and three or four gallons of wonderful, juicy black raspberries that she'd make into pies, toppings and that we'd just devour plain by the handful. Something else I used to eat a lot of in the spring and summer were curly dock leaves. This is a low growing plant with vibrantly red-veined greens that grew profusely around the place. Often I'd just pluck them and pop them right into my mouth. They were very tasty and sweet just like that. Then once I came home from work and R had collected pollen from cattails and used it in a pancake recipe. I have never had better pancakes than those.

Another wild growing item in plentiful supply was wild strawberries. They grew in big patches in our own field and nearby ones. The fruit was a magnificent combination of sweet and tart that had even the best cultivated strawberries totally beat. The only hitch was that they were very small, about the size of the nail on a woman's pinky finger. Luckily R had the patience to scoot around on her butt for hours, methodically picking them. With a little honey added, they tasted like pure ambrosia. We told our friends at the food co-op in the city about them and one day two or three of the ladies drove the 20 miles out to pick some. Unfortunately we didn't communicate how one should prepare oneself to pick wild strawberries in a low field surrounded by swamps, namely in sturdy, long sleeved and pant legged garments with socks and shoes, perhaps a scarf and definitely a hat for the hot sun, and your entire body doused with powerful-smelling citronella to ward off the bugs. The girls came in pretty, summer-thin, knee-length cotton dresses with bare shoulders and wearing open-toed sandals. They didn't have a chance. I tried to swat some of the hordes of hungry mosquitoes that settled on their skin, but it was hopeless and our friends left running and never came back.

[NCW_Woodnymph]

There is nothing better than wild gathered goodies!:D My husband and I gathered about 25 lbs of blackberries last summer. He is going to make us some mead and the rest will go to jam. Wild berries are so much better than store bought!

We also collect mushrooms where we go camping every year. Mostly matsutakes and chantrells but we are slowly learning what else is edible.

This year we are hoping to get up there early enough to get some fern sprouts. I hear they are good tempura. Has anyone ever tried them?



:hippie:

[crazylegs]

Never tried ferns. Had a few mushrooms once or twice. We used to put little greens like lambs quarters on cheese sandwiches and in salads. Wild asparagus was always pretty primo. The really great one though was wild leeks. Driving through the country in spring all of a sudden R would yell out "leeks!" Then we'd stop and walk into the woods to pull them out. They are awesomely wonderful delicate oniony/meaty greens for soups and stews. Better than anything like it you can buy.